


Fascinated

by quicksparrows



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/M, Fingering, Masturbation, Voyeurism, getting caught hurrhurr, niles is a warning in and of himself, when ur family doesn't like the creep ur into
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-24 22:03:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 14,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6168311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksparrows/pseuds/quicksparrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about a sheltered princess and a sly thief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Guy With A Bow

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in Tokyo. I wrote this on the plane yesterday. I bought filthy Kamui/Zero doujin today. Things are going well.
> 
> Lamb is my new MU. I married her to Niles in Conquest after the fiasco of my husband choice in Birthright, which is a fucking ride, I'll tell you that much.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's difficult to remember names when you've only just met them on the battlefield.
> 
> [Extremely minimal spoilers.]

.

 

 

 

 

Lamb slips on the ice.

In hindsight, she should have been more careful. Her feet ache dully from cold, the snow tolerable on her fine skin only for the dragon blood in her veins, but her traction is poor. She ought to have considered treads, at the very least. 

Still, she is saved from a hard crash to the ice by an arm around her back and another looped under her knees, and just like that she is swept up. The shock of falling is replaced by embarrassment when she looks up to see the handsome (if not weathered) face of her rescuer and sees him grinning wolfishly at her. It's that guy with the bow, the one who had come as reinforcements. 

"Careful, Princess," he says. It sounds like a term of endearment rather than a title, and it's the first time she's heard that from someone who isn't also royalty themselves. His lips are full, despite being curved slyly.

"Put me down... um," she says. She fumbles for a name and comes up blank.

"You don't remember my name?" he says, hurt.

Lamb tries to sit up in his arms and find her own feet, but he has such a grip on her, and he is so tall that she isn't fond of the idea of dropping onto the ice.

"Sorry, we just met in the middle of a battle," she says. "Put me down!"

He does no such thing.

"I'm offended," he says. "Not fifteen minutes ago, I dispatched a soldier who was going to strike you, and I did it from _fifty yards_ with only my modest bow. Not only did I go unthanked then, but now I've caught you and you can't even recall my _name_. No, I think I shall hold you until you say my name."

Lamb looks at him, startled. She's seldom been so abruptly denied anything in her life, sheltered as it has been.

"But I don't remember," she protests.

"It'll be a terribly awkward journey back to the castle," he agrees. "You'd better think on it carefully."

His arms are strong and _broad,_ and though she is quite unhappy to linger, he cradles her with such expertise that she curiously wonders if he pulls this trick on many women.

"You're Leo's retainer," she tries. "You're with that other guy, the dark mage."

"Oh, how I _wish_ I was with that guy," the man says, but he doesn't just say it -- he _purrs_ it, a low rumble that she feels through his chest. "But a job description isn't a name, my dear. Out with it."

"This is so silly, please just put me down," she says, flustered now. Her cheeks feel warm enough to melt the snow, or maybe the whole village around them.

"If you truly don't remember," he says, "we'll have to make a deal."

He seems like the type to make a lot of deals, though maybe not the kind Lamb would consider savoury or fair. In fact, he seems like he's about to ransom her, and though she may be naive and sweet, her intuition is not so poor that she'd languish in his arms.

"I don't think so," she says.

She tries to wiggle free from him at that, but his grip is quite good and he only ends up twirling her around with him to keep her balance off. They tussle for a minute, him laughing, and she heaves a sigh and says with such exasperation: "Tell me your terms, then! If I can't remember your name, but you still need to put me down." 

"You give me a kiss," he says. "And I shall tell you my name and put you down."

Her cheeks burn red.

"But I've never kissed anyone before," she protests. "And your name is not that valuable!"

He just laughs, and before she can plead her case more, he sets her right down on her feet, a hand still on the small of her back to steady her.

"You may kiss me when you are ready, then. I _will_ remember that," he says, cheekily. "And you will surely remember now, too — my name is Niles."

Niles. As she skitters across the ice towards the rest of their camp, she _knows_ she won't forget.


	2. Callouses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She invites him over, and he makes himself at home in her bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my name is Jenn and I have not yet recovered from jet lag and this results in  
> a) sleeping maybe 3-4 hours a night  
> b) writing tons in the early hours of the morning  
> c) finishing and weeping over Conquest at 4 am  
> d) rainy walks around Tokyo at 5 am
> 
> You're all insane and thank you so much for it, because I've never gotten such a rapid, instant reaction to fic before like the first Niles one lmao. Please enjoy this next one.

.

 

 

 

When she invited him to her treehouse, she didn't expect Niles to instantly make himself at home. She'd expected to  _ talk_, to get to know the man her brother trusted with his life, the man who had literally swept her off her feet. But here she is, watching Niles stretch out, right on her bed.

She's never had a man in her room who wasn't her brother or her best friend, and it's just about as novel as it is disquieting. What does she know of men? She hardly knows much of the outside world.

She can't help but think that Xander would have Niles' neck just for being here, Leo's retainer or not.

"Come join me," he says, "if you don't want to play any of the games I suggested, the least we could do is lay here and tell stories to while away the hours."

He pats the space on the duvet next to him, but she sits on the end of the bed, by his feet. Niles gives a little suit-yourself shrug and leans back on his elbows, long-bodied and lithe, and Lamb sees right up his too-short tunic. The laces of his breeches strain against a magnificent bulge, and upon realizing where she's looking, she flushes.

Niles chuckles and she feels it warm her. He is a little creepy in his forwardness, but he is so friendly it's hard to not like him a little more every moment — she's never really met anyone she could  _ want _ to like so much, beyond her world of servants and siblings. She knows a little of longing, even being sheltered. Her whole life has been longing.

"Caught you looking," he says, and her eyes snap up. 

"At what?" she says, as if it could be as truthfully naive as she wants it to sound.

"At the  _ goods_," he says. His eye is fixed on her but half-lidded, his pale lashes long and thick. Niles is handsome for a man so damaged. "Weren't you?"

"I was not," she says. It's hard to not let her eyes drift down again when he shifts, getting comfortable on her bed with a deliberate little arch of his back. He folds his arms behind his head and closes that one eye with a relaxed sigh.

"Well," he purrs. "I wouldn't be opposed if you did. Even a hideous man such as I enjoys being appreciated."

Lamb laughs, intrigued but flustered. Looking away doesn't banish intrusive thoughts: she wonders to herself what it might be like to fondle him, and if would be pleasing to him. (Probably.) You don't spend too much time out of a tower before you start to hear stories about what people  _ do _ with their bodies, but Lamb is certain she never expected to meet someone so physically magnetic, so full-bodied affectionate.

"There's a lot to admire," she says.

Niles grins, and he slyly hooks a finger at her, beckoning her over.

"Come admire me a little closer, then," he bids her.

"Okay," Lamb agrees. She slides down the edge of the bed, near his knees, and she tries to focus on the rest of him instead of his groin. He just watches her watching him, for a time, and then he shifts to lay on his side, head propped up on one bent hand. He's so close he could touch her, but he doesn't. She wants him to, maybe; she'd love to feel his hands, his fingertips, even feel the callouses from his bowstrings on the softest parts of her hands. Her sides. Her thighs.

She wants a world of new experiences and so far, out of all the strange and different people she's met, he seems most interested in giving them to her.

"This isn't what I expected, you know," he says. "An invitation from a lady, to spend time unchaperoned in her..." He waves his free hand around idly, carelessly, and then lays it on her knee. "... Treehouse."

"What did you expect?" she asks.

Niles chuckles again.

"I have no expectations, Princess," he says. She likes the way it rolls of his tongue –– languid, casual. There's no formality, just the soft  _ ooze _ of sensuality.

"I expect that sounds like you want  me to have expectations so that _ you _ ..." Lamb laughs, and restarts: "So that  _you _ can expect something from  _me_. "

He finger-walks his hand from her knee to her thigh.

"So what expectations do you want me to have?" he asks.

Lamb swallows her breath. She glances down at his hand and dares ensnare it with his own, to still it. His fingers are inches from the hem of her bottoms, and his warm finger-pads put little indents on her skin.

"I don't know," she says, and the flush creeps on her face. "I think I'll repay you that kiss and then you should..."

He looks at her, tousled hair falling in his face, his smirk wide and lazy. Go on, he sayswithout actually saying it, but she can practically feel his hand slackening her resolve.

"I think my brothers and older sister would kill you if they realized you were here," she says. "So maybe you should go."

Niles doesn't seem too perturbed by this. His hand doesn't move, either, he just sits up. His face is so close that she almost leans away, but she doesn't — they  _ both _ want that kiss, don't they?

"You're a sweet thing, princess," he says. He turns his face away suddenly and he sighs. "You know, the risk of a blade only turns me into the idea of staying and tempting you a little more, but that wouldn't be kind of me."

She's not sure why she's so disappointed by that. A week ago she'd balked at being in his arms, but now she's intrigued. If he's teasing, she's inviting it.

"Don't you want that kiss, though?" she asks.

He pauses, and then sighs and shakes his head with a smile. He reaches to tuck her hair behind her ear, but it's so chaste that instead all she feels is the new absence of his hand in her thigh.

"No, Lady Lamb," he says, "it wasn't fair for me to coerce such a thing. Don't let this black sheep have you stray too far from your flock, hmm?"

"But Niles," she says, protesting.

"How lovely to hear my name," he says, and he pushes himself from the bed to his feet. "Let's do this again, shall we? I assure you I'm leaving in high spirits, even with our bargain settled so abruptly."

Lamb isn't sure what to say, but she stays sitting there, watching him put his boots back on. When he bends, she sees clear up the back of his tunic, and he's close enough that she sees every clingy curve. (She swears he does it deliberately.)

"Mention it to your brothers, though," he says. "At least I'll get a little excitement out of it that way, hmm?"

He grins.

"You're so strange, Niles," Lamb says, quietly.

"It is a curse," he replies.

And then he's gone, tight pants and calloused fingers and all.


	3. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scrap of privacy before teatime, sitting on Niles' lap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This series of ficlets is going to go from 0 to 60 to 100 in no time.

.

 

 

 

 

 

"Come sit on my knee," Niles says, coaxingly. Lamb looks at him dubiously — Niles does a lot of things on whims, but sitting on his lap is a new one.

"Why?" she says.

He watches her from across the table, leaning against it with his chin in one hand and smiling. _Thump thump_ , goes Lamb's heart.

"I'm lonely over here," he says, and he pushes his chair back and pats his thigh, beckoning her. Lamb sets down her playing cards. "You don't want me to be lonely, do you?"

Lamb rises to her feet and rounds the table, coming at a stop between his spread knees. She stands over him smiling, but she doesn't sit.

"I think you just want me in your lap," she says.

"Surely you didn't come over here with the intention of denying me," he says.

"No," she says, "I just wanted to make you wait."

"I've waited," he laughs.

"And say please," she adds, and she reaches for his pretty face, to hold his cheeks between her hands and force him to look at her. Niles laughs, and he takes those hands in his own and kisses both of her palms.

"Please, lady," he says.

So with a smile, Lamb promptly turns and sits on his knee, neatly fluffing her dress so the skirts are not rumpled under her bottom. Perched to face him, she feels a little smug, and nicely bold.

"Lonely now?" she asks.

"No, certainly not," he says. He reaches up to finger her bangs from her eyes, gentle and sweet, and she decides she really, really likes him. Niles seems to feel the same, though she's not yet convinced it's anything special to her — he does possess, after all, a magnetism few men could ever hope to have. To be attracted by him is no unique trait, she knows.

"Do you like being close to me, Niles?" she asks.

He hums, deep in his chest. It's a pleasant sound, and were she a little closer, she's sure she could feel it hum through his chest to hers. He puts a hand to her waist, quite boldly for Lamb's experiences but surely thoughtless to him.

"If I could," he says, "I'd always want to be close to you."

"Why?" she asks.

"You have a warmth to you," he says. His hand roves to her thigh — a favourite place, it seems. "Like all love-starved people, I crave warmth."

"Love-starved?" She laughs without thinking, but immediately feels it might be cruel to do so. If Niles feels that way, however, he doesn't show it. He just watches her with a wide smile.

"Don't you?" he asks.

"... Crave warmth?" she asks.

Niles runs a hand up and down her thigh, long and slow, and when his hand goes back up, it goes underneath the skirt of her dress. He does it without taking his eye off her, as if it were an entirely casual gesture. Her heart pounds.

"Well, yes," she says. "I grew up locked away in a tower..."

"Sit a little closer, then," he says.

She shifts to sit closer, but Niles picks her up and turns her so that her back is against his chest, so she goes with him, reclining against him. It's surprising, really, how comfortable it feels — it's that warmth for sure.

And then she realizes suddenly that there is a sizeable bulge against her bottom, one she feels quite clearly through the thin material of her panties. Niles breathes a long, slow inhale near her ear. She flushes red, and she sits up straight again so fast that she ends up moving against it.

"That was bold," he says.

"You're bold," she replies. "You put me here... and Jakob brings tea at two."

Her heart picks up at that thought. New stabs at boldness aside, she doesn't want to get caught like this.

"You let me," he says, right in her ear. "You could move, if you'd like. I wouldn't stop you." 

His arms around her waist are loose, indeed, and Lamb certainly doesn't want to move — it's alarming, and playing with fire, but not _unwelcome_. She stays put, though her heart pounds. Jakob really could catch her like this, and he wouldn't turn a blind eye, either. She breathes in deeply, and she looks at him over her shoulder.

"Only for a few minutes," she says, under her breath.

"We'd best hurry, then," Niles whispers.

He doesn't even hesitate. He runs a hand up her ribs, then, right to her breast. Lamb breathes in; she is modestly sized and his palm is firm, and the light shirting of her dress is thin enough that she feels the warmth of his skin.

"You're so easy," he purrs. She feels almost boneless, draped against his chest, and her head lols back against his shoulder. She closes her eyes, and her lips part for a second, silently, as he catches a nipple through the fabric.

"We haven't even kissed yet," she says, cheek to cheek with him. He chuckles, a hand dipping to her groin to squeeze her, right through the cotton of her dress. She feels like she's _humming_. She lifts up in his lap, his grip on her firm.

" _Oh,_ princess, that is on _you_ ," he says.

And, twisting just slightly, she grabs him in that kiss.

His mouth isn't quite what she expected — his lips are soft, yes, but his mouth greets her hard, hungrily. She kisses him and it isn't just a chaste little peck, but an all-consuming kiss that has her breathing in sharply through her nose and tugging at his lips like she doesn't want to let go. He opens his mouth to her and the there's a noise at the treehouse door, and only then does she pull back, alarmed.

"Let go," she hisses and she pulls herself from his lap, moving flustered to her side of the table and straightening her skirts. She manages to sit down right as Jakob himself walks in, a platter of scones and tea balanced on one hand.

"Lady Lamb," he says, a touch concerned.

"Yes?" she replies, as casually perky as she can be with the lingering ghosts of Niles' touch on her thighs, her breasts, her groin. She brushes her hair behind her ears.

Jakob looks at her with a slight frown, and then at Niles, who is slouched back in his seat with his legs spread. His mouth is in a wide smirk, and Jakob openly scoffs and looks back to Lamb.

"Such company we keep these days," he says, setting down the platter. "I never imagined I'd serve tea to ruffians and outlaws, on Prince Leo's invitation or not." 

Niles hardly even reacts. He just takes a scone and cracks it open with his fingers, steam unfurling from the bread immediately, and he butters it with his finger. Lamb almost expects him to stir his tea with his fingers, too, but she hopes not — Jakob looks apoplectic as it is.

"Lady Lamb, would you perhaps like me to send Niles to see if his master needs anything?" Jakob says.

"No, it's alright," Lamb replies, sweetly, patiently. "I invited him here."

 Jakob bows his head but says nothing, busying himself with pouring tea. Beyond Jakob's busy hands, Lamb watches Niles bite into his scone, watching her in turn. A dab of butter lingers on the corner of his mouth, and when she gestures at her own mouth with one finger, she gets to watch him lick it off, deliberately long and slow.

Lamb just looks down at her lap and smiles, and the three of them remain in silence until tea is over.


	4. Collaring Dogs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The royal family of Nohr balks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't imagine the Nohr siblings being too enthused about this guy wanting to bone their sister. Or their sister having such horrible taste.
> 
> Anyway, I'm not in Tokyo anymore. Welcome home, me. You'll get another chapter tomorrow as I catch up with real life.

.

 

 

 

 

At dinner, her older brother lays down the law.

"Lamb," he says, seriously, "stop pushing your peas around and eat them."

It's been so long since she heard such a thing that she almost snickers, but instead she pops a spoonful in her mouth. She still hates peas, but Xander is picky about table manners and clearing one's plate. He always has been.

"I hear from Jakob that Niles has been visiting you," Xander says. He cuts his pork with a smooth stroke of his knife, but he doesn't take the bite just yet. He sounds grim. "Slipping through windows, apparently."

Camilla's hand flutters to her chest.

"Lamb," she says, concerned. "Is that true?"

"Eww, that guy is creepy," Elise chimes in.

Leo doesn't even look up from his book, though he does make a face. It must be such work, keeping up with a retainer who always steps on others toes, but Lamb can't ruminate on it for long when three of her four siblings are waiting on an answer.

"Yes, it's true," she says.

Xander gives her such a look of consternation that Lamb worries, suddenly, that she's admitted to much more than just that, but he sighs heavily and looks to Leo.

"You are to rectify this," he says. "He is _your_ responsibility."

"By lecturing him?" Leo asks, still not looking up from his book — Lamb is sure reading at the dinner table vexes Xander more than the peas, maybe more than the entire war campaign against Hoshido. "You know there's not much you can do to him to punish him, right?"

Xander reaches across the table to put a hand on Leo's book, pushing it down so Leo must look at him.

"I don't care how it is you collar that dog," Xander says, "do it promptly."

"He's really not that bad," Lamb offers. "We've just had tea a few times, and talked about his childhood... He's sweeter than he seems."

Xander isn't impressed in the slightest by this, but it's Camilla who speaks.

"Little Lamb," she coos, "I'm sure he _seems_ sweet but the rumours are true, you know. I won't burden your ears with the sordid details, but you can _trust_ me when I say he's no good."

Lamb loves her siblings, but she's felt like a porcelain doll for too many years to let them wrap her up in cotton wool once again.

"Leo," she implores, "surely you wouldn't keep him around if he was actually dangerous, would you?"

Leo sighs and yanks his book from Xander's hand to close it properly. He sets it aside and sits up straighter — he loves to do that when he has a good chance to show off his genius, as if making himself look taller also makes him seem smarter.

"Listen," he says, "I won't deny he is unsavoury, and he certainly seems to delight in making people uncomfortable. He's also lazy, and easily distracted by..." He waves a hand, airily. "Carnal matters."

Xander rests his forehead in his hand with a heaved sigh.

"I see why he's generally regrettable to you lot, and certainly it's vile that he's tempted to prey on my beautiful sisters, but he's also stellar at gathering information, and he is far smarter than he looks. Some of my best strategies have been built from his insight on the enemy, and his aim with a bow is invaluable for those damned winged ponies the Hoshidans ride."

"Surely we can find other archers," Camilla suggests.

"Not as good as him, I'm afraid," Leo says.

"Are you calling me beautiful to be sarcastic?" Elise pipes up. 

"Yes, Elise," Leo sighs, "I would never _actually_ say that and mean it."

Xander has to reach across his side of the table and put a hand on Elise's shoulder to prevent her from leaping to her feet to argue back, fork in-hand. He doesn't even need to say anything to her — she instantly pouts, arms folded.

Lamb moves to push her peas around again but Xander gives her such a serious look that she pauses.

"Under _no_ circumstances will you permit Niles in your room," he says.

And then to Leo, imperiously:

"If I hear it once more from Jakob, I'll handle him myself."

"You'd take away my retainer, brother?" Leo frowns.

"No," Xander says. "I trust your reasons for keeping him. But I will personally flay him within an inch of his life to get the message across that our sisters are strictly off limits."

Leo shrugs.

"I'm warning you that I don't think that'll work, but feel free," Leo drawls. "He'll go after you for the challenge, you know."

"He won't if he values his life," Xander replies, so curtly that the rest fall silent.

Lamb just swallows her words and goes back to her peas.


	5. Can't Get Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He sneaks in at night anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [pulled over on side of road by cop]
> 
> Yes, sir, I understand that I am going way over the speed limit. Yes, I understand I'm supposed to do like, character-building or something, but sir–– sir, it's Niles.

.

 

 

 

"It's not supposed to be sexy, you know," Lamb says to him, quite seriously. She's talking about the rule, the one where he's not supposed to be in her room.

Niles doesn't seem to care, anyway. He's lounged in her bed again, but this time, she's in it, too. The summer heat has him stripped of his cloak and lazing in just his tunic and leggings, but it's sweltering to have another body so close to her, even at this hour of the night, when the earth should have long cooled off.

And she understands that she's not supposed to have him here, hence having the sheets pulled up around her and a modest nightdress on, but that's a poor attempt at honoring the spirit of the rules. He's in her bed. He's not supposed to be in her bed, but he is. 

Why does she let him?

"Your nightclothes?" he says. "I didn't want to be the one to say it, but no, Princess, they aren't. And they should be."

"That's not what I meant," she says.

"You're right, sweetling, you deserve something nicer," he says. "Perhaps something in leather — my favourite parts of you left open, so I can play."

Lamb sighs, giving in — he's running a hand up and down her abdomen in a way that is almost hypnotic, every pass running closer to her groin. She feels a pounding in her, a hollowness that demands his fingers, but he doesn't move so fast. Good, she thinks. He's not supposed to. _They're_ not supposed to.

"I mean my older brother beating you," she says. "Didn't Leo warn you?"

Niles shrugs.

"He did, and quite frankly at that, but here I am," he says. He leans up on an elbow. "Would the sight of my ribboned back sour you to me?"

"Only because I wouldn't want him to kill you," she says. She breathes in deeply when he cups her groin and squeezes, finger pads curling in.

"You mustn't worry about that," Niles says. "My master wouldn't let Prince Xander kill me. And even if he did, I don't mind a little roughness from a man like that. Besides, isn't it more fun this way, sneaking around, the thrill of getting caught?"

She certainly believes he feels that way, the way his cock is hard against her hip. She can even agree to some extent — there was a flurry of excitement in almost being caught before. He cuddles closer now, and she wants him so badly but she can't. She pulls right from his reach, then, sitting up. Getting caught would have consequences. 

"Niles," she says, seriously. "You can't seriously mean that, it's almost like you want to get beaten."

"Almost?" he says. "I didn't think I was that subtle."

Lamb stares at him.

"I wonder if he would do it without that cold armor on," Niles says, openly fantasizing. "More man than soldier, for once! Roll his sleeves up around his elbows and stride around the stocks first, to make an example of me before the crowd... and then he'd lay into me hard." 

"I don't think that's Xander's style," Lamb says.

But she's lost him, at this point, though he has his eye locked with hers. 

"Just the idea is tempting," he says. "Look!"

The tent in his leggings is impossible to ignore, and she watches him unlace the front and slowly — temptingly — expose himself to her. She's never seen him bare to her, but here he is now, bold and erotic and half-hard in his own hand. His skin is dark, velvety, and darker still against the shock white curls of pubic hair. The head is glistening wet. 

She could almost laugh if she wasn't afraid of waking Jakob or Felicia in the next rooms — instead she reaches for his hands to stop him.

"Niles," she says, low and tense though her heart is picking up, "we can't get caught."

He looks at her with such a twinkle in his eye, and he says, low on his breath: "Keep me quiet, then. So we don't get caught."

He wraps a fist around his cock and pumps slowly, and for an instant, Lamb isn't sure what to do — she's caught between gaping at his cock openly in her sight and the tickle of fear of being caught. She keeps her grip on his wrists, like that might stop him, but he breathes a shuddering breath in her face and pumps himself a little harder.

" _Niles_ ," she repeats.

"Keep me quiet," he repeats, and he takes a second to put her hand to his mouth. He kisses her fingers, lips buttery smooth, and he stifles himself with them. "Mmm," he moans.

In the silence of her treehouse, that moan is so loud it startles her, so she does clasp her hand over his mouth to stifle him, and hard at that. He breathes in sharply through his nose as if she'd stroked him instead. He shudders under her, still jerking himself.

"Niles," she says, quiet but sharp. "Quiet, be quiet—"

The head of his cock brushes her stomach as he presses himself towards her. His little groans are too loud under her palm, so she presses harder, and harder still when he lifts his hips right off the bed to touch his cockhead against her skin, harder.

She doesn't know what'll happen if he comes, or what she'll do.

With him jerking harder, Lamb slides overtop him to pin him in place — not that it stops him, but with more leverage it is easier to smother him into the pillows. His body tenses — a knee coming up, his spine arching. Lamb feels every coil of energy in his body, every bit of tension in his muscles, the firmness of his forearm from gripping his own cock. She bears down on him hard, getting muffled noises and groans in return.

She's practically straddling him, hand still on his mouth, and he just furiously strokes himself between her legs, the tangle of sheets and clothing doing little to keep them apart. She feels his tension roiling through her own body, through her thighs and her arms, and she presses him into the mattress as if that might stifle him completely.

And then, almost all of him shuddering under her weight makes something click in her, sudden and sharp.

_Oh._

"Niles," she says, a little breathy for the effort.

His eye rolls back. He comes under her, cock bursting with a hot mess that catches the front of her nightdress and his own tunic. For a moment she's startled, at least until she catches herself rocking her hips against him, too. She releases his mouth, gingerly, only to have him capture her mouth with his and kiss her, hard.

For a moment she lets him, savouring how worked up he is, and then she pulls away.

"You..." she trails.

"Came," he purrs, satisfied. He flops back, chuckling low in his throat, and Lamb just sits astride him stunned.

"In my bed," she says.

"On you," he corrects her. He plucks the wet spot of her nightdress where it sticks to her skin, and it comes away slickly. "Don't let Jakob find that in the wash, now."

"I can't believe you!" Lamb moans, quietly as she can, but there's a little breathiness in it. She looks down at his flaccid cock. In the dim light coming through her window, she can see the damp spot on his tunic, and the wet sheen on it as it lays against his belly. "What if we're caught?"

"That's the thrill of it," he says.

"It's not thrilling, it's dangerous," she says.

But deep in her, she feels that need for his fingers more than ever. As if reading her mind, Niles reaches for her, to cup her again, right through her nightdress. She's wet, she realizes, stunned. He strokes her with one finger, languid and slow.

"Since I'm here and all," he drawls, "how quiet can you be?"

Lamb's heart pounds.

_Oh_ , she can be quiet.


	6. Unnerved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scene in a bathhouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, I was writing this, wasn't I? Idek lmao.

.

 

 

Lamb used to know when to turn around — the kind of places sheltered princesses are supposed to turn around, like dark alleyways and amongst troublemakers. These days, however, she's done a lot of skulking around, spent time with slippery people. Spending so much time with Niles has rubbed off on her, through his fingers and palms and seeped into her skin.

And on this day, when she slips into the bathhouse with her towel wrapped firmly around her body, and she discovers quite quickly that Niles in inside, she doesn't turn back, either. Why would she? Spending time with Niles has been a long lesson in who she is, and perhaps, in the end, she isn't the sort of girl who turns back shyly from the bathhouse gates just because a man is inside.

Instead, she might just be the sort of girl who goes in _for_ that man.

She creeps out beyond the entrance hall and towards the pool. Niles is facing her, but he doesn't acknowledge her. He's lounging on the edge of the pool, surely naked -- Lamb can see no evidence of briefs under the murky water. He's evidently been there a long time, given the steam on his skin. She gets close enough to see a fat bead of condensation roll between his pecs. His good eye is closed, his hair damp. Maybe he's dozing? She can't imagine falling asleep in here...

When she's standing over him, he lazily opens his one eye and looks up at her.

"Spying on me in the bath, are you? You're not subtle at all..."

Lamb feels the hot creep of a flush on her face, but she chalks it up to the mugginess of the hot spring. 

"I thought you were asleep," she says. And then, a little sharper: "What if you'd drowned?"

"I'd be delighted," he replies, and his mouth curves at one side. "Oh, what I'd give to have you haul me from the water and revive me with your mouth."

"Would that work, if you drowned?" Lamb looks at his sly mouth and the fullness of his lips and wishes she had something cleverer to say.

"Perhaps, perhaps not," he says, "but it'd be a happy death if it didn't, with you draped over me."

He reaches up to thumb at her towel.

"I imagine this would fall off in a hurry," he says. "So you'd be bent over my unworthy self, completely nude."

Lamb chooses boldness again, opening her towel to reveal her black swimsuit. But where she expected a measure of disappointment over her not being naked, she gets a lavicious groan.

"If only you'd blushed at doing that," he says, "I wouldn't have any reservations about bending you over right here in the pool."

Lamb is sure she could get used to this, being spoken to so boldly, to be wanted so openly and unabashedly. She likes it. It tickles her curiosity like nothing else.

"And then what?" she asks.

Niles smirks.

"Do you want me to tell you what I'd do to you?"

Lamb flushes then.

"Yes," she says.

"Well," Niles says, and he seems to relish just the thought, let alone saying it out loud. "I think I'd have you on the tile, on all fours... where your knees might bruise. You might think that sounds uncomfortable, but with my fingers in you to the knuckles and coaxing out an orgasm, you wouldn't even have a thought for the tiles."

Lamb can picture it — she wonders what it might feel like to have his fingers in her, thick and warm, stroking from the inside. She can imagine the burn in her thighs from keeping herself upright, the mugginess of the hot spring making everything slippery. Her back could ache, arched like that, but would she even feel it, wound up as she would be?

"Do you like bruises?" she asks, sitting down on the edge of the pool. He sidles closer, low in the water, palming one of her knees. He opens her legs so casually that she scarcely realizes what he's doing until he kneeling right between her knees.

"I like many things," he says, and she doesn't doubt him for a moment. She's heard rumours, like everyone in their camp. She's cuddled close to him, felt the rigid shaft of his erection slide against her underwear as she'd whispered "we'll get caught." She knows the little things that intrigue him and him alone.

"I don't bruise much," she says. "Dragonskin is tough, even in this form... it would take a lot of kneeling."

Niles shifts in the water, draping himself against the edge and looking up at her with something akin to adoration. 

"Is that a challenge?"

"No," she says. "It doesn't unnerve you?"

"What doesn't unnerve me?" He asks.

"That I'm a shapeshifter," she says. "A dragon."

Niles chuckles, low and warm, and he puts a palm on her calf and runs it up to her knee.

"I think it'll make our love that much more interesting," he says. "I don't leave stones unturned, you know, but after our little trysts, I think I'd like to get to know what's under yours."

All she hears is _love._ Their love. Their little trysts. Lamb feels her heart pick up. This is happening, she realizes — it's not just a series of incidental encounters. He isn't talking to her just to tease her. She isn't just curious, she's invested.

They're together already, in some sense.

She leans in over him, as far as she can go without falling into the water, and he looks up at her. For a moment, they're nose-to-nose. Up close, she can see the weatherbeating on his face, the little nicks and scratches on his skin from a rough life far from her sheltered upbringing. He doesn't say anything — he watches her.

"Do I unnerve you?" he asks.

Lamb pauses.

"Yes," she says. "But I want to be unnerved."

He looks up at her conspiratorially, and she feels a dull throb in her groin, as if her heart has dropped there.

"Good," he says. 


	7. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He neglected to tell her, but she feels bad about it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't forget, I was just busy. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

When she walks into the armory, Niles has his boots up on the counter and his hands folded on his stomach. He's dozing, head bowed slightly. Lamb watches him for a moment. How he can nap anywhere and everywhere, Lamb has no idea, but it must be how he can be up and about at all hours: he catnaps whenever there's a quiet moment.

She tiptoes to the counter, and she eases herself past the counter door slowly so that the hinges don't creak. For a beat she stands over him, watching his chest rise and fall. What Odin had said to her earlier weighs heavily on her heart, and she must speak to her "boyfriend" about it, so she reaches to wake him by cupping his cheek.

His eye flickers open, and upon seeing that it is, indeed, _her_ , he chuckles at her.

"I don't think there's a single person on this earth who would wake me as gently as you do, Lamb," he says. "Why is it, that you're so different?"

"I just like to," she says, and she leans against him. Perish the thought that no one would treat him gently but her, she thinks. It'd be a stretch to describe Niles himself as gentle (or anything remotely close to it) but even the most ungentle person deserves a measure of gentleness in return.

"Good lady," he hums. "I like you."

He closes his eye again and leans into her touch, his hand covering hers, his thumb running along hers. She pauses, pursing her lips. 

"Odin said you kept something from me," she trails. She wants to see if he'll admit it to her himself, but Niles just carries on stroking her thumb with his own.

"I hope he wasn't spilling secrets," he says. "His mouth is so large, more spills out than goes in. Normally I'd put a mouth like that to good use, but when it comes to secrets, I get a little... _twitchy_."

"Niles," she scolds him, and she pushes her lower lip out even further. He chuckles, which does nothing to deter her.

"I'm tugging on your curls, Lamb," he says, thumbing her lower lip playfully. "I've got my sights set on your mouth, not his."

The flush comes hot and thick on her face, and she decides to move back to what she came to speak to him about.

"It was your birthday a few days ago, wasn't it?" she asks. "Why didn't you tell me?" 

His laughter fades. He gives her a somewhat blank look, as if it hadn't occurred to him at all, and she frowns. He does, too, and he takes his boots down off the counter so he can sit up straight. Lamb sits back on her heels, both hands in her lap.

"Are you hurt?" Niles says, in that vague surprised-yet-unsurprised tone. Bemused yet fond. Intrigued at the things that move her yet completely unmoved himself. Her mystery man. "I didn't think it would matter."

"It matters to me," she protests. "If I'd known, I would have made you a cake and sung you happy birthday and gotten you presents."

"Sweet of you, but I've never been much for birthdays," he says. "Never had any."

Lamb's heart breaks for him a little. She doesn't want Niles to feel neglected, even though he surely must have felt it much of his life.

She looks at him with such worry in her heart.

"Oh, don't fret at me," Niles says with a sigh. "Come here."

He pats his thigh pointedly, and Lamb puts herself right on his lap, both legs draped over the armrest of the chair, body curled against his chest. He chuckles and pets her when she buries his face against his shoulder.

"Darling, it's not so bad," he says. 

"It's terrible," she says, muffled. 

Niles breathes a sigh she feels, the rise of his chest against her. She tightens her arms around his neck.

"I don't miss what I never had," Niles says, pointedly. "It sounds like _you've_ missed birthdays."

Her face still buried against his shoulder, she hesitates, and then she replies: "Sometimes they wouldn't be allowed to visit, and it was always loneliest on my birthday."

Niles sighs and runs his fingers through her hair.

She may have never had lavish balls like the ones Camilla and Elise had told her about, but she'd never gone without well-wishes. To think of Niles having never experienced that is a long way away from her humble birthdays of a few choice gifts and one of Jakob's lavish confections. She'd always felt loved. To imagine a birthday without cake is a bit of a tragic thing when it would have been the least anyone could do, if only she'd known.

But still, there was Xander, and he had missed her birthday once or twice–– it had been the most crushing feeling alive, to be told he couldn't make it, not that week. Even after all of the other days where Father had greater demands for his other children, this one day couldn't be hers. _He has his duties,_ Leo had said, but the cake hadn't been nearly sweet enough to offset the sting.

"It's not so terrible," Niles says. "You know, with all the friends you have now, you could have more people at your birthday than ever before."

"I know," she says. "But we missed yours."

"If it makes you happy, we could have my birthday tomorrow," he replies. "That would give you tonight to prepare, wouldn't it?"

She sits up to smile at him, though it still feels a little sad.

"There's a new bow being forged for you at the smithy already," she admits.

Niles cracks a smile, his hand warm on the small of her back, and he lets out a low chuckle.

"That's perfect, then," he says. "It's the best birthday already."

She brushes his bangs from his face a little and presses a kiss to his cheek. He bumps his nose against hers.

"I have an idea for another gift, if you're feeling generous," he says.

Lamb pauses, tip of her nose right against his. She looks at him for a second, considering, and then she says: "Not in the armory."

"Boo," he chides her, but he indulges her in a kiss just the same.

 


	8. Fingers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fingering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao

.

 

 

 

Niles has such slippery fingers.

She watches him all the time. He plucks an apple from a vendor's stall in such a way that even those who notice him doing it are too awed by his slickness to cry thief. He can turn doorknobs so carefully they don't make a sound, not a squeak for the need of oil nor the rattle of wood on doorframe. He can, when no one's looking, make a little come-hither gesture at her so tempting she almost goes. He knows his way around pins and bars, leveraging them just so until the lock –– _any_ lock –– opens for him. He is always teasing the feathered tails of his arrows, a fingertip caressing each one before he sends it on its way.

Whether or not he's been dipping them into her one by one under the cover of darkness, his fingers are, indeed, slippery.

She's nervous –– _eager_ , but nervous. He has her backed up against his chest, her armor stripped away, leaving her in only a blouse and her stockings. The stockings are the ones with the cutaway thighs, the exposed skin hot and wet from where she'd pressed her thighs together at the thought of him. 

He eases them apart like it's nothing. 

"You know why you wear stockings like this?" he asks, tracing a finger along the curve of her stockings, along her inner thigh. She shakes her head, curls in his face. _Oh,_ how does she always end up in his lap? He chuckles, breath hot: "It's so you don't even have to take them off."

He gropes her with the expanse of his palm, his fingers gently curled around her and _up._ When her breath hitches, he buries his nose in her hair, mouth against her ear.

"Your heart is racing," he says.

"I know," she says, but it comes out on her breath at the end as he curls his fingers again. There's an all-body warmness to it, a tingling she feels go from her toes to the tips of her ears, and a _beat_ in her groin that begs for _something_. "What are you waiting for?"

"Impatient," he clucks at her, but he sweeps the crotch of her panties aside with two fingers alone, and this time, he squeezes her skin-on-skin. She feels her heart skip a beat or two –– it's the first time he's moved past her panties, yet he does it like it's a daily ritual.

Her fingernails dig into his strong arm.

"Niles," she breathes. He rubs her down, back and forth with his whole palm, spreading her wetness around, and then he gropes her again, firmer _still_ this time. She says his name again, higher.

"I'm listening," he says. "Tell me what you want."

"I want––" she fumbles for the words, something that isn't crude, but there's no option but to breathe it in a low rasp: "Touch me."

"I already am," he teases. "But I suppose I could just..."

He curls his fingers against her, and with an expert precision, he slips one finger between her lips and hits this _spot_ that Lamb is sure didn't exist until this one second, this one second where she is lifting her hips against his hand with a jerk. She exhales a whine, and he chuckles and keeps her pinned against him, his fingers rubbing slow, lazy circles. The heartbeat in her groin quickens, and there's a hollowness to that feeling, a want to be filled.

"I didn't think you'd be such an instant slut for my fingers," he purrs.

She didn't imagine she'd ever be called such a thing, much less like the way it tickles her ears, but there it is. She dares look at him, just to see the catlike smile on his face as he works her with his fingers, and he's watching her intently. She's somewhat surprised, in that delirious, punch-drunk way, to find him breathing heavily, too. His lips are parted, his cheeks flushed. 

She kisses him, breathing into his mouth, feeling him shudder under her as he works her. Niles moans around her mouth, and in that instant, as his fingers run faster over her clit, she thinks he might be enjoying this even more than she is. And then, slippery as can be, he slides a finger _into_ her.

In that moment, she sees stars.

"Niles," she begs. "You..."

"Just say my name," he murmurs, "Again."

So she does.

He pushes in, so slick that he _glides_ , and he strokes her entrance for a moment before hiking her higher on his chest so he reach deeper. His index finger is thick, calloused from the bow, but she's so wet she just feels the _pressure_ , the caress deep in her. She clamps down on him, almost involuntarily, but he slides another slickened finger into her, scissoring them firmly, stroking.

"Niles," she repeats, panting, arching –– she has no _thought_ , suddenly, his fingers commanding all body function, all of her reduced to a panting, heaving mess.

"Go on," he goads her. He pauses to nibble at her ear, breath hot on her skin, and he says it again: "You're so wet for me, now come for me."

She doesn't know how many fingers or even hands are on her, her legs boneless as he finger-fucks her steadily, the pressure on her clit and curled up inside her too much. She moans his name as she comes, a fuzzing over of the mind and a tingling from her head to her toes, and if it weren't for his body against hers grounding her, she'd surely float away.

"Niles," she repeats, again and again, and she feels his heart thud-thudding for it.

"You remember it _now,_ don't you?" he murmurs, a touch breathless, but he's smirking. She's shaking.

She just laughs, delirious.


	9. Battlefield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief conversation with Camilla.

.

 

 

They don't meet on the battlefield often.

If they could, Lamb wouldn't mind — he looks talented, when she catches a glimpse of him from afar, but their strategies seldom call for him to be front and center. He is always wandering off to retrieve treasure or unlock doors, while Lamb is on the front lines. 

Someday, she'd like to see him work up close. See where he gets those callouses.

"Darling," Camilla coos, when she catches Lamb watching from afar. "What has you so distracted?"

 "I think I'd like to learn archery someday," Lamb replies.

"Well, I'm sure we can find someone to teach you," Camilla says, in a voice that practically caresses her. 

"What about Niles?" Lamb asks. She itches to see Niles without him crawling through her windows, or coming under the pretense of a message from her brother. "I'm sure Leo wouldn't mind lending him..."

Camilla clucks her tongue.

"Lamb, sweetheart — you know how I feel about that. He always says such crude things... I'd worry about you every second."

"I'm sure he's just misunderstood," Lamb says.

She doesn't understand why they're always like this, so quick to brush him off. Sure, she can grant that she is naive at times, but he has never been anything but sweet to her.

Camilla just sighs, reaching over with one armored hand and running her fingers ever-so-gently through Lamb's hair. Lamb doesn't linger under that touch –– instead she pushes on, running on ahead, on the pretense of seizing the initiative. 

If they're really meant to be, they still have to find a way to be together.

And just then, as she crosses the field to the last few Hoshidan soldiers, Lamb finds herself right in range of a kinshi knight, mounted on a glorious golden kite. Lamb raises her sword in defense under those magnificent wings and misses as the bird careens out of her reach. The knight fits an arrow to her bow, but before she can let it fly, her mount dies underneath her/

The arrow lodged in the bird's chest has struck it dead, and the knight plummets to her death with her mount.

Heart pounding, Lamb looks to Niles on the rise. He lowers his bow and smirks broadly at her, his white hair fluffed by the breeze.

"Right when you need me most, hmm?" he calls.

"Thank you, Niles," Lamb calls back. She watches his gaze move past her, and he bows quite dramatically. Lamb looks behind her to see Camilla having caught up with her. "See, Camilla, he's just––"

"How rude," Camilla says to Niles. "I was going to slay that knight in just a moment."

"Too slow," Niles chides. His licks his lips. "Better luck next time, Mother!"

Lamb watches Camilla's expression shift between offense and intrigue. Niles waves and disappears again, and Lamb feels a little piece of her float away with him, wishing she could follow.

"He might be cute," Camilla says. "But he's toying with you."

Then let her be toyed with, Lamb decides. She feels confident it will work out.


	10. A Grown Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation with Xander.

.

 

 

 

Lamb lingers at the doorway to Xander's office, but she doesn't say anything –– not at first, anyway. Xander eventually acknowledges her with a mere glance, but it takes another moment of silence (and her plucking up her courage) before he says:

"Oughtn't you be in bed?" he asks.

"Yes, but I wanted to talk to you," she says, entering. She pauses. "Sorry. I don't mean to disturb you."

The candle is burning low, casting orange light across his face. Her older brother looks at her from across his desk with deepening lines around his eyes, but he sighs and gestures to the armchair beside his desk. She sits, knees tucked up like a child, just like she used to.

"Don't worry about me," he says. "I don't mind sparing a few moments for you while I work, little princess. Just let me finish this document and we'll talk."

It makes her feel warm, to be almost a grown woman and still be spoken of so fondly, but then again, the state of being a grown woman is why she is here, isn't it? She watches him finish whatever letter he is drafting, his quill looping across the parchment effortlessly, and then the harsher sound of his pen striking the "X" of his own name.

"Big brother," she says, when she is certain she isn't interrupting his train of thought. "Do you trust me?"

Xander fixes her with a curious look.

"Of course. You are honest to a fault, little one," he says. "Why do you ask?"

Lamb meets his gaze. _Now or never._

"I'd like to get to know Niles," she says. "And I don't want you to be upset..."

"I thought we had this conversation already," Xander says, clipped. 

"But don't you trust me?"

"It's not that I don't trust _you_ , little princess. I just don't trust him."

"I know," she says. "But we've met around the castle here or there, and he's always so sweet to me, so I thought maybe I would plead his case."

Xander shakes his head curtly.

"Absolutely not," he says. "This is not up for discussion."

"Then it doesn't _feel_ like you trust me," she says.

Xander sighs. 

"There are many reasons _beyond_ my trust for you, little princess," he says. "Were we of another class, perhaps I could overlook his unsavory nature, at the very least. But the reality is that you are a princess of Nohr. Even if we weren't preparing to conquer Hoshido, you shouldn't be courting anyone."

"Father wants me dead," she says, pointedly. "Why would he marry me off if he'd just have me executed?"

Xander purses his lips momentarily.

"Let's not waste breath on discussing what will not change, little princess," he says.  "Father has been preoccupied for a long time. He hasn't had time to make any suitable matches, and between you and I... Nohr lacks much in the way of political ties that are not strictly neutral, anyhow. Marriage is a long way off, even for me."

"He hasn't even found a partner for you, let alone the rest of our siblings –– I don't want to wait forever. I don't want to die alone."

Xander softens a touch at that, his expression relaxing, and he reaches a hand across the table for her own. She gives it to him readily, and he closes his long fingers around hers.

"You will never die _alone_ , little princess," he says, most seriously. "I can promise you that."

Lamb nods, solemnly, but dying alone isn't the same as dying unwed, without a love she can be boldly proud of. She knows she will die, someday, amongst people who love her. It's the solitude that scares her.

He lets her hand slip from his to return to writing.

Lamb tries to imagine Niles in a finely tailored frock, cravat neatly tied at his throat, hair combed back. It just doesn't fit, because she still imagines him sitting askance in a chair, licking his lips at her. No number of gleaming buttons could offset the shagginess of his hair, the old leather eyepatch, or the broadness of his mouth. 

He's not a groom fit for Nohrian nobility, even a noblewoman with her regrettable reputation.  

Still, the groom she'd likely be matched with would be far worse than a thief who steals through windows and whispers dirty things in her ears. He'd be a middling warlord at best, and a cruel one at worst. Father's eye would never be drawn to anyone without the ambition to crush and conquer, but she wouldn't be valuable enough to marry to anyone noteworthy. The cousin or brother of a lord, maybe. He'd be foul, but there'd be money involved.

Lamb folds her arms against the desk, chin on her hands, like she'd done as a child, watching him write his letters. She watches Xander write, and when her gaze proves unbreakable, he looks at her.

"Does it bother you that much?" he asks.

"What if father wants me to marry some creepy old man?" she asks.

"Then you'll marry a creepy old man," Xander replies. "But I'll do everything in my power to influence Father in another direction."

It strikes her that she doesn't even know how old Niles is. Older than her, certainly — perhaps his mid twenties, but perhaps around Xander's age. It's difficult to tell; perhaps the streets have weathered Niles the same way stress has worn her brother, making him seem older, or perhaps Niles is just more natural in that element than Xander is at being Crown Prince.  

She tries to guess, but nothing stands out. Do they really talk so little that she wouldn't know? What if he's in his later thirties? He _could_ be. 

"What if I still don't want to?" she asks. "What if I find someone myself?"

Xander frowns, and then seems to give in on something: he sighs and takes off his reading glasses, setting them aside, and he looks at her so frankly that she feels reduced to a pouting child.

"I loathe to be harsh with you, Lamb," he says, "but I cannot blithely listen to you ask after Niles and then ask that kind of question. It is naive, even for you."

Lamb bites her lip.

"Well, what if I did?"

"You hardly know the man," Xander scolds.

"He's not as bad as people say, not to me," she says. "He's very sweet, always asking after me and looking out for me."

"As your siblings and retainers and servants all do for you, as well," Xander replies, curtly. "What is so different about his sweetness?"

Lamb flusters, fumbles — her siblings dote on her like a beloved child, her servants serve her with unyielding, unchallenging obedience, her retainers diligently support her in the art of war. They are all dear to her beyond measure, certainly, but if there is a reason Niles stands apart, it must be because...

"He doesn't look at me like a child," she says. "Xander, he's not afraid to tease me, or challenge me, and I'm not a porcelain doll to him..."

He looks at her with narrowed eyes.

"I can't explain it," she confesses, under that gaze. "Maybe not as well as anyone else, but Xander, he really likes me."

Xander doesn't say a thing, so she fumbles for more: "I think people underestimate him."

Xander lays a hand over hers.

"Lamb," he says, seriously. She just waits, bottom lip trembling. "May I ask what he has said or done for you to make you pine for him so unreasonably?"

Lamb hesitates. Niles hasn't done anything for her that she can pull out as some grand example of his kindness; he has climbed through her window and skirted her retainers for months now with an impunity she has admired, he has tickled her fancy and made her feel delighted and made her heart pick up and made her face flush pink. 

Has he brought her flowers? Said sweet things that didn't fall to her breasts, her hips, her thighs? He's swept her off her feet, but was it ever romantic?

Suddenly she doesn't feel like a woman grown. She doesn't know what to say to convince him, to place her argument, even though an hour ago she'd been practicing it in her mind. It's all just gone, rendered miserably blank by one damned question.

_What was he said or done for her?_

"Lamb," Xander says.

"He loves me," she says, reaching. "He said so, and I trust that it was genuine."

"Then I remain unmoved, little princess," he says. He stands, slowly, and reaches for her hand again. "Come. I'll walk you to bed."

Lamb just rises to her feet, tears slipping. She doesn't resist when Xander puts a strong arm around her and walks her to the door.

She doesn't know what to say.


	11. Unstable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who loves who?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working through a backlog.

.

 

 

"You love me, don't you?"

Niles looks at her, but where she wishes she saw immediate, effusive agreement, there's nothing. His mouth is a grimace and his lone eye is passive. Not that she ever could have expected him to throw his arms around her, lift her in the air and make some bold declaration of his affections for her, but his neutrality is almost heartbreaking.

"Niles?"

"I don't think I should answer that," he replies.

"Why not?"

"Because there's no answer to that which would make you happy, sweetling," he says.

_That's not true,_ she wants to say. That's not true at all, she would love to hear that she is loved, truly and honestly, and it would fill her with resolve to know that all this sneaking about has been for some greater purpose. 

But she doesn't say it.

Neither answer would satisfy the problem, which is that there may not be a place for someone like him in her life –– at least not a place for something this intimate, or as intimate as she wants it to be. 

She sniffles instead, and Niles sits up a little straighter. He reaches to her, cupping her face in his palms and thumbing away the burgeoning tears.

"Well, don't you look pretty?" he says. She laughs, sadly. He says: "Not many people can look so pretty when they cry, you know. For most people it's great ugly tears and running noses. Sometimes a lot of drool, too, if they've been choked a little. You're positively radiant like this."

"Stop," she says. "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"Not at all," he says. "It's very true, and I wouldn't lie to you."

She leans her cheek in his hand, one of her own hands clasped overtop his. His fingers are warm, calloused. The pads are rough on her skin in a pleasantly-unpleasant way, and he smells of wood and smoke and sweat. He leans his forehead against hers.

"Then why can't you just tell me?" she says.

"Because while I may not lie to you, I _do_ tease," he says.

He slides his hands down her body and eases her down, then, laying her back in the hay. The stables are quiet, all the horses resting and the buzz of flies a forgettable white noise. Lamb goes with his hands, still hiccuping, and he starts to unbutton her dress.

"I don't want to be teased," she says.

"I know," he says.

He kisses her then, open-mouthed and hungry, and Lamb breathes in sharply through her nose. She winds her fingers into the straps of his breast guard, feels the leather firm under her grip, feels the way it tugs his body against hers. He lays on her, between her open legs, and he presses her into the hay. It smells dry and sweet all around her.

She tucks her chin down so he can't kiss her anymore. He lingers close, though, heavy between her legs, and he nudges her with his nose.

"Am I too rough for you?" he asks, almost crooning. "You may be too sweet for someone like me."

"No," she says, but it feels like a petulant response. She looks at him square in the eye, her lips pursing. "I like this. I like you."

" _Ah_ ," Niles says, "but do you _love_ me?"

She thinks of what Xander might say or do if he saw them, disheveled and hiding in the stables for a tryst.

She can't answer either.

She just lets him work a hand into her panties, and that, at least, feels good.


	12. Warned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo's unhappy warning.

.

 

 

"So Xander tells me that _you_ ––" he looks to Niles, pointedly. "Are in love with––" he gestures towards Lamb. " _Her._ "

Lamb looks to Niles. Once more, butterflies tornado in her gut, thinking he might just say as much, but he doesn't... but he doesn't _deny_ it, either. Niles Niles shrugs.

"Was I _that_ careless?" he drawls.

"Or _she_ was," Leo says, finally turning his eyes to Lamb. Lamb swallows her breath. "I didn't think we had to have this conversation, but apparently you don't know how these things work. What did you do?"

Lamb isn't sure how to answer at first, and she's sure it shows on her face.

"Gods, I don't want to know _that_. I wanted to know what you said to Xander," Leo clarifies.

"I... I thought I could convince him," Lamb says.

"Well, your rhetoric leaves much to be desired," Leo says.

"I realized that," Lamb says, feeling completely chastened. He might be her little brother by a matter of mere months, but he isn't sheltered like her, not one bit. That difference makes it feel like he's a lifetime beyond her.

"Then you'll learn your lesson, at least," Leo says. "I don't need to tell you how stupid it is that it's even crossed Xander's mind, let alone that you made it _obvious_ to him. Niles is going to be in a great deal of trouble."

Niles looks at her, finally. Lamb imagines he should feel betrayed, but if he does, he doesn't show it at all. He's smiling, though somewhat passively, and he watches her as if he already knows what's going on in her head.

Leo just sighs heavily.

"Wipe that smile off your face. You're going to be in the stocks by evening, you idiot," Leo says to Niles. "I'm surprised he didn't drag you out of bed in the middle of the damn night."

"He probably knew I'd prefer it that way," Niles says.

"Most likely," Leo agrees. "You'll like it either way, though, so I hope you're glad that you're getting what you want."

Niles shrugs.

"That or someone else wanted to see me flogged," he says, eye drifting to Lamb again. She likes the shape of his mouth around the word flogged, but there isn't time to think about that.

Leo pinches the bridge of his nose as through he's just felt a migraine come on. Lamb feels her cheeks grow hot, but any embarrassment she might have felt or protest she might have had at such a thing is outweighed by her sinking heart.

Xander might just kill him.

"You _were_ warned," Leo says, spying her expression.

"I just thought he'd understand how I felt," she says. "Doesn't he want a say in who he loves, too? I didn't think he'd take it that seriously."

"It doesn't matter what Xander feels –– I don't think Xander even cares about what Xander feels. He must be protective of us, most of all of you and Elise. Beyond that, he has a part to play with Father."

"I hope he beats me _mercilessly_ ," Niles says.

"You'd best pray that's all you get," Leo says, darkly, but he sounds a little concerned, too. "If Father finds out, you'll just be executed, and then she'll be traumatized and _I'll_ be short a retainer."

Executed.

She's no stranger to having her life threatened by King Garon, but to directly cause the execution of another...

Lamb walks six steps and places herself in Niles' reach, and she leans right into him, right against his chest. She has her eyes fixed directly on his leather breast guard , refusing to look at his face nor Leo's, but she feels Niles look to Leo and she hears Leo sigh. And then, after an agonizing moment, Niles puts his arms around her.

"Poor thing," Niles croons. "Beside herself at the mere thought."

"I'm going to pretend I'm not seeing this and try not to hurl," Leo says.


	13. Something To Consider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flogging and some self-flagellation.

.

 

 

"Can we talk about Niles a moment?"

Leo looks at her when he asks that question, his fine features a little tense. He's sitting with her on the balcony of her treehouse, having decided it would be the best place to be while his retainer is punished for various indiscretions.

"What's there to say?" Lamb replies. "I don't want to get him in more trouble."

"He got himself in trouble," Leo says, pointedly. "He could have gone after Elise, or Beruka, or even Nyx — all to the same end."

"I know, but he chose me."

Lamb doesn't put much stock in shifting blame when she's sitting in her cozy treehouse while her not-so-secret boyfriend with the wandering hands is flogged.

Leo is looking at her but she just uncomfortably looks anywhere else, eyes on the distant landscape but _listening_ to the sound of Niles carrying on, screaming with something like delight. _Of course_ he would. And just like Niles wanted, Xander has his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the thick girth of his forearm.

"You know, I was fascinated by him, too, once," Leo says.

The way he says it bothers her. It bodes ill. Lamb gently bites the inside of her lip.

"I know how he is," Leo says. "I understand, Lamb. I do."

And so does she, maybe.

Lamb pauses, long and dark. Her stomach seems to fall into a bottomless pit as her imagination runs away with her. Would Leo ever moon over anyone, daydreaming about another time or place where they could be together? Would Leo steal away with Niles, hitch his breath and feel his heartbeat quicken at a stolen moment? Would Leo bemoan a social position that would never allow him to be with someone like Niles?

She just can't imagine it.

"We were never at any point where either of us uttered anything akin to love," Leo says, "But then again, regardless of what you told Xander, I imagine he hasn't with you, either."

Lamb pauses.

"No," she says. "I guess he hasn't."

"That's something to consider, then," he says.

She doesn't want to. This isn't what she thought it would be. She's sure she never held some expectation that she was the only one Niles would be interested in, or even that his interests were ever exclusively for her. She supposes she just didn't expect Leo to be one of them.

"Did you...?"

"No," Leo says. "I'm much too pragmatic to have ever thought it would last, so I never allowed myself that."

"Oh," Lamb says. She doesn't want to clarify what she'd really been asking.

Leo purses his lips. He's said a lot of things she hadn't expected, and maybe she feels a _little_ vindicated now, a little understood, but maybe he hadn't wanted to share that.

"He's my retainer. I trust him, and he will have that position as long as he chooses to have it — he is very loyal, even if he isn't faithful. Those are very different things. Now you'll have to start considering whether that is something you'd want out of him, or any lover, now that you've joined us."

The world beyond her little fortress and its creature comforts and its tall barred windows is a place that needs so much consideration. Nobody made her body feel like this before she'd joined _their_ world.

"Why are you telling me this?" Lamb asks.

Leo pauses.

"I never told anyone before."

Oh.

"I'm sorry," Lamb says.

He shrugs his shoulders, and he looks out the window again instead of at her. Niles is laughing, the only sound other than the crack of the whip in the stillness of the morning. Lamb watches a thick glob of drool work its way down Niles' chin, almost gelatinous, and his back runs red in long, free rivers. He looks like he's enjoying himself, or at the very least enjoying it for the express purpose of unnerving Xander, who has never had quite enough resolve to be convincing at beatings.

Ironically, Leo would be better.

They watch until Xander passes aside the whip and leaves, Niles slack against his bonds but still chuckling, teasing. Catcalling Xander as he walks away.

"Well," Leo says, a little bit of a sigh on his voice. "I should go clean that fool up. If you come by in an hour or so, I'll sneak you in."

"Mm," she hums.

Her heart still beats a little quicker when she thinks about crawling into Niles' bed and nursing his wounds. She wants to see the way his mouth will inevitably smirk when she fusses over him, hear some raunchy joke about her fingers in him when she touches his raw flesh.

Leo gets up, squeezes her shoulder, and leaves.


	14. Supportive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warriors came out and Niles was in it briefly. That was interesting.

.

 

Leo's expression is tight. Lamb isn't sure she's ever seen it so tight, not once. His pursed lips could crush diamonds.

"You ought to be careful," he says. "Skulking around is why he got beaten in the first place."

So it is. Lamb feels her face burn. Still, she must try, and so she lingers at the door with her hands wringing the front of her dress. The taffeta had been ironed so nicely this morning, and now it is hopelessly creased.

"I'm just trying to be supportive," she says, as if this could change anything.

"Well, he gets plenty of support from his fellow retainer and master."

"Please?"

He pauses, and then scowls. He grasps the door handle and looks around furtively as he pulls it open.

"Be quick, would you? You're going to get me in trouble with Xander."

Lamb tries to slip in around him, eager to be out of sight in the hallway, but Leo blocks her path with an arm. He looks at her and she's not sure what he's trying to say with those pursed lips and searching eyes, and she stares back at him with her poor dress wrung in a knot.

"Thank you," she says, when he doesn't seem to be able to speak. "For all this. I know it's..." She pauses. She knows so much more than she did just hours before.

"Just be careful," Leo repeats, and he moves for her.


	15. Mettle

.

 

 

"Niles?" she calls, softly, in case he's sleeping. 

He isn't. He's sprawled on his belly on the cot made up in Leo's sitting room, and he shifts just enough that she sees his lone eye open and lock on her. That eye is beckoning. Her heart swells.

"Come here," he says. "I want a kiss for the road, just in case I slip away in the night."

"You're not going to die," she says, immediately worried. _Could he?_

"No, I'm made of stiffer mettle than that," he says, dryly.

Lamb tip toes across the room and crouches at his head, so that Niles won't have to crane his neck to look at her. He lifts his head regardless, just enough for her to catch him in a kiss, warm and sweet, but she pulls away before he can nip at her lips. Somehow, she's not in the mood.

"Rest," she scolds him. 

"I'm _much_ too turned on for that," he says.

She brushes his hair from his eyes with her fingertips; she's so close she can see the worn edges of his eyepatch, where the saddle stitching is loose from the leather. His breath is warm.

"We're in my brother's quarters," Lamb says. A warning, perhaps.

"I'm well aware," Niles says. "And Lord Leo let you in, hmm?"

"I think he understands," Lamb says. She hopes that doesn't sound too leading, but Niles doesn't seem to notice. 

"Maybe he'll join us," Niles says.

Lamb pauses.

"You're injured," she says, "So I don't think you're up for one of us, let alone both."

Niles chuckles. She wonders if he knows, but he doesn't reply at all, so she moves to sit at his side, where he work his gaze on her. She runs her fingers gingerly down the small of his back, where the lashes haven't kissed. Flogging, she knows, is only supposed to strike between the shoulder blades, but Xander has left stray marks down to mid-back, and almost up to the hairline. _Accidents happen._ Lamb eyes the space between his shoulder blades, a broad valley her fingers have dipped into many times before. If she did that now, her fingers would touch a pulpy pink mess. 

When her gaze lingers too long, she can see little bubbles of fat poking inside the lips of the deep welts.

It scares her so she lets her eyes move along, downward. His breeches are so low on his hips that she can see the cleft of his ass.

"Lamb," Leo says, from the doorway.

Lamb takes a sweet second to look up; Niles is already gazing at his lord obediently. She feels something settle in her stomach, heavy like lead.

"It's time to go," Leo says, closing the door behind him. "Let this fool rest."

Niles groans, low and unnecessary but undeniably tempting.

"Already? But it's nice to be on my belly for once," he teases. "My lord, if you send her away, I hope you'll take pity on me in her stead."

Leo's eyes move to Lamb, who looks away.

She's not sure she can bear it.


	16. Special

_._

 

_She is lead by her brother over to the couch, where he twirls her and she giggles and crawls up next to Camilla. Xander sits on her other side. Between her two elder siblings, Lamb is as happy as can be._

_"Lamb," Camilla says, "have you noticed something different?"_

_Lamb stops suddenly to inspect Camilla, eyes widening. What didn't she notice? Her keen eyes run over Camilla first, and then Xander. And then, dubiously, she says: "What is it?"_

_Camilla just smiles that mysterious smile, so Lamb looks to Xander. The corners of his mouth twitch up, just enough for her to notice. After a second, he gestures to the top of Camilla's head._

_And there it is, a polished black tiara. The center looks like the swing and curl of vines, and each side bears a cow-like horn, gleaming jet black._

_Lamb turns sharply back to Xander, and she sees his tiara, too, a simple circlet resting high on his brow, partially obscured by the fall of his hair._

_Despite herself, Lamb squeals: "Crowns!"_

_"Yes," Camilla says, proudly. "Father claimed us both as his heirs after that last battle, and so we are crown prince and princess."_

_"Pretty!" Lamb just exclaims, and she stretches her arms as high as they'll go to reach, to prod the cold metal of Camilla's crown. Camilla laughs, dipping her head. "Will I have one someday?"_

_"Almost certainly," Camilla coos. "You are the most special child of Father's, after all, and a most special child will certainly get a most special crown!"_

_There are times where Lamb doesn't feel so special, locked away in a tower and only dreaming of living below with her sisters and brothers, but all it takes to soothe her are words like that from dear Camilla, or dear Xander._

_She is special._

 

_._

 

Now Xander stands at the door, seeming a thousand miles away from them.

"You have no right to be here, Xander," Camilla scolds. "You've upset her."

Lamb wants nothing more than to feel like an adult, but what she wants seems meaningless when she's curled up in Camilla's arms like a babe and sobbing into her sister's blouse. Camilla's grip is tight, protective. Even motherly. 

If Xander says anything, Lamb doesn't hear it, buried in Camilla and sadness as she is. If he makes any expression, if he deepens the lines of his face with a frown, if he scowls or looks cross, Lamb doesn't see it. She sees nothing, eyes screwed shut.

"How dare you upset her?" Camilla asks. 

"Camilla," Xander says. "Upsetting her was not my intent."

"What did you think would happen, dear brother?" Camilla asks, low and glittering and dangerous. "I have half a mind to beat you within an inch of your life for hurting my sweet Lamb."

There's silence.

And then:

"Come here, Lamb."

Lamb raises her head but not her eyes. Camilla runs a hand down her back, soothing and calm despite the poison in her words. Lamb lingers in Camilla's lap before crawling from it, finding her feet on the floor. Obedient child, as always. 

She walks to Xander with lowered eyes. 

"What a pretty dress," he murmurs, thumbing the white collar and smoothing it in the process. It's about the smoothest part of her right now; the taffeta skirts are hopelessly creased, her hair is a wild tangle of unbrushed curls.

"Jakob made it," she says, sniffling, "But I got to pick the fabric and the buttons."

(Jakob had presented her with one fabric and one style of button, but she'd approved it, and seen it when it was a pile of materials and not a dress, so that's still choosing, isn't it?)

"You chose well, then," Xander says, and this is no small compliment. 

Lamb responds by throwing her arms around his waist and burying her face against his side; despite the tension, despite his displeasure at her, it feels like something she _can_ do, and she feels his sigh as he gives in to her need for warmth. His hand runs down her back.

"She didn't mean to upset you," Camilla scolds, but her voice has dipped lower, more purred. "You are _too_ harsh on our special girl."

"Hmm," Xander murmurs.

But not, it seems, too harsh on Niles.

She is special.


	17. Queries

.

 

 

Niles drags a finger through her hair, parting it funny. Normally he does such a thing as prelude to nibbling at her ear or cozying up to her, but she's not having it today. She hunches her shoulders, twists her spine so they aren't touching so much. He sighs at her instead.

"How have I upset you, little sheep?" he asks.

She's not sure. He hasn't, but then again, in some ways, he has caused upset in _general_. She curls up, knees to her chest, and she holds her own ankles –– left to right, right to left. She sighs deeply, too. Niles lets her be, flopping aside in the grass.

"I imagine that's a yes."

She thinks about Camilla's cooing voice, her warm hands on her cheeks: _I only want what makes you happy, no matter what anyone thinks, whatever makes you happy._ And Elise, curled up into the small of her back in bed: _He just doesn't want us to have any fun!_ (As if fun for Elise were anything more than white tea china with painted flowers and pink cookies on platters, the sweet girl!) And Leo, patient with her, gently probing: _can I keep you company while you read? We don't have to talk but I'm so bored alone in my quarters._

Even Xander, smoothing her hair over the back of her head: _You need to eat a little more at dinner time, Lamb. You look sickly. It doesn't suit a spirited girl like you._

"You've been quiet all week," he asks. "I imagine the beating has something to do with it."

Lamb finds it in her to nod numbly.

"You seemed to enjoy it,” she says. Almost mournful. Her fingers have traced his scars, fresh and raw and barely scabbed over, and she has felt his erection pulse under his trousers when doing so. 

"What does that change between us?" he asks. 

"Niles, what _doesn't_ that change?" she replies, scarcely letting him finish before she's unloading that: _what doesn't that change, you fool?_ Both them are surprised by how it gusts out of her, sharp and colder than she ever meant to. Something has broken. _Don't you realize how difficult this is for me, while you're having so much fun?_

He seems to mull it over a second.

"Is this about your brother?"

"Yes," she says.

"Xander?" he queries.

"Leo," she says.

The knot in her belly unfurls, twists, knots again in whole new ways.

 


End file.
